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Canada’s finance minister, Jim Flahrety is scheduled to present the 2013-2014 federal budget on Thursday.

In anticipation, Quebec’s finance minister, Nicolas Marceau says the federal budget will not affect his.

Marceau told the Gazette he is concerned over circulating rumours that Flahrety will not renew the federal skills training program in 2014.

This could result in cuts of $116 million in funding to Emploi-Quebec.

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A new report shows wait times for priority medical treatments have not decreased despite efforts from provincial governments.

CBC News reports while 21,000 more procedures occurred in 2012 compared to 2011, wait times remained unchanged.

The report conducted by the Canadian Institute for Health Information initially found a dramatic decrease in wait times.

Hip and knee replacements in 2012 were 15 per cent higher than in 2010, putting a strain on health systems.

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The chaos and uncertainty continues at Montreal city hall.

According to CBC News, General Manger Guy Hebert was forced to resign from his post on Monday afternoon. He was forced to give up his post after denying he was responsible for former SPVM cheif Marc Parent's resignation earlier in the day at a press conference.

Interim mayor Michael Applebaum told the media that Hebert overstepped his bounds by asking Parent to resign. It was then revealed by an aide of the Quebec Public Security minister that Hebert did in fact try to have Parent removed from power.

It seems that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is seeing red these days.

According to CBC News, the prime minister isn' happy about Canada’s longstanding shortage of skilled workers.

Harper has been budding heads within his own government to come up with new methods to help Canadians acquire proper work-related skills in order to fill thousands of job vacancies.

The federal government gives provinces more than 2 billion a year from the employment insurance fund. 

An aquatic expert from the University of Windsor says despite new policies and thorough clean up, the Great Lakes are still in a grave state which could have a serious impact on the 40-million who live nearby.

As reported by CBC News, The Great Lakes are under several stresses induced by pharmaceutical waste and climate change that are causing algal blooms known as “blue-green” to develop in them.

Sunday’s edition of the New York Times featured an ad paid for by the government of Alberta promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project.  

According to CBC News, the 30,000 dollar ad is the latest move by Alberta to push its case for the 1,800 kilometre pipeline that would bring oil form Alberta’s oil sands through the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf Coast in Texas for shipment to users all over the world. 

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Life at Concordia University may be getting a little more difficult in the near future.

According to a report by The Link, full-time teachers at the university voted 74 percent in favour of strike action.

About 1000 professors who are being represented by the Concordia University Faculty Association took part in the vote.

The latest person to testify at the Charbonneau Commission Wednesday was the former vice president of Genviar François Perreault.

The Montreal Gazette reports Perreault explained exactly how money flowed from Quebec’s largest engineering firm to Union Montreal.

Perreault estimates Genviar passed over $300 000 to Union Montreal between 2004 and 2008.

The firm used registered companies in Quebec who never did any work to transfer the money discreetly.

These companies filed false invoices to Genviar for work and Genviar provided a cheque as payment.

The former vice-president of major Quebec engineering firm Genivar took to the stand for a second day at the Charbonneau Commission on Wednesday.

François Perreault continued his testimony by revealing how his firm funneled money to the city’s most powerful municipal political party.

From 2004 to 2008 Genivar funneled between $300,000 and $400,000 to Union Montreal, according to the Gazette.

Perreault testified that the scheme included false invoices and using smaller companies as fronts for moving the money.

After a recess, Charles Meunier, who worked for engineering firm BPR, took the stand.